Monthly Archives: January 2006

Classic Science Fiction Reviews
This week’s Classic SF Novel at SF Weekly is none other than Roger Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber.
A good review of the book, its predecessors, and its successors, as well as its legacy on the author.

in the Shadow of Greatness: actual play ‘pull’
Arref links us to some examples of Push versus Pull dynamics in RPGing. I admit that Forge terminology in his previous links did turn me off, since I am not as conversant with those as many of my peers.

Found on my dear ‘sister from Michigan’, Liz’s site, the text of a speech by Al Gore on this MLK Day.
I can find precious few references to it anywhere. Read it, and wonder why.
Where was THIS Al Gore in Fall 2000?
How the world would have been different.

Back by popular demand is the game meme IRE–Inspired by Recent Events. I take an event which has happened recently, and we, that is to say, myself and anyone who wants to play, spins a RPG scenario based on it.The previous IREs are available to be read here.
This time out, I am going to eschew all the bad news that has hit the world lately, and go for something positive–Eid Al Adha, the beginning of the Muslim Hajj.
The Muslim Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca that every faithful Muslim is asked to make at least one in his or her life. The pilgrimages traditionally begin at this time every year.
So, what shall I do with this in an RPG sense?

HubbleSite – There’s More to the North Star Than Meets the Eye – 1/9/2006
By using the full capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope, Astronomers have verified that Polaris, the North Pole Star, is not just a single star, but actually a trinary star system! Its been known for a while that Polaris had a relatively distant companion, but the Hubble verified that Polaris A actually has a close companion–a mere 2 billion miles away. The companion is a mediocre main sequence star, one reason why its been lost in the glare and power of the Polaris A supergiant.

GameCenter: Recap – SuperBowl.com – Official website of Super Bowl XL
And so my Giants end their season not on a bang, but a whimper, one of the most inept playoff performances in their storied history.
The Panthers rightly believed that shutting down Barber was the key to unraveling the Giants, and it worked. It worked like a charm.
Well, I would have been happy at the beginning of the season with a 9-7 record, so an 11-5, division title season is nothing to sneeze at. I just hope Manning straightens up and flies right next year.
I really hope we don’t need a new quarterback. We paid too much for him as it is.

I wanted to read 52 books this year. Including two audio books listened to on the trip to and from Yellowstone, I managed 61 books this year. My only regret is that driving in to work the last couple of weeks stalled my reading. I had to find other time than my commute to finish my last book.
With History of God done, my next book, and the first for next year, will be by the same author that I started 2005 with–Terry Pratchett.

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A Reality-Based Blog for Paul Weimer's interests, including but not limited to Science and F/SF, books, Movies, NFL Football, Role Playing Games, Photography, and why 6*9=42. "Living in the Science Fiction Present", Proudly supporting Anti-Mundane SF, and aware of all internet traditions! I'm just this guy, you know?